In “The Electric State,” a young woman and a silent robot slowly make their way across the carcass of the United States, littered with beached war ships and drones. In this alternative history, machines got on a fast track to sentience during the 20th century and waged war against humanity, which barely won. By the alt-1990s, hyper-capitalism and virtual reality have destroyed communal and social bonds — people are so addicted to V.R., which they mainline via helmet-like neurocasters, that they can go into vegetative states, oblivious to the world around them. The story is muted and evocative, and it leaves you with a powerful feeling of bereavement and grief for what we, as a species, have brought on ourselves.
I’m sorry, I was talking about the illustrated novel “The Electric State” (2018), by the Swedish artist and writer Simon Stalenhag.
Anthony Russo and Joe Russo’s movie version, streaming on Netflix, is quite different.
It does have the same context and setup, but whereas the book is elliptical in narrative, muted in color palette and melancholy in mood, the movie is obvious, garish and just plain dumb. (For those interested, the Prime Video series “Tales From the Loop” is a much worthier adaptation of Stalenhag’s universe.)
Naturally, a film can have an autonomous worth, equal but distinct from its source material (“Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” and “Blade Runner” come to mind). But even considered on its own, this “Electric State” remains a hyper-processed industrial product packed with sugar and sodium (in the form of quips and battles), along with such wonderful additives as goopy sentiment and automatic-pilot acting.
We still have a young woman, Michelle (Millie Bobby Brown), and she is still accompanied by a robot, Kid Cosmo (voiced by Alan Tudyk). But she is no longer central to the story or even the cast, having teamed up with a swashbuckling smuggler, Keats (Chris Pratt), and his own bot sidekick, Herman (voiced by Anthony Mackie). Because it’s easier to blame epochal collapse on one bad guy than on collective apathy, we also get Stanley Tucci as Ethan Skate, a tech tycoon up to no good.
Most of the film takes place in the Exclusion Zone, where robots have been detained since humans won the war against them. The design team clearly had fun creating a gallery of retrofuturist animatronics that heavily draw from mid-20th-century mascots and brands — their leader is Mr. Peanut (voiced by Woody Harrelson). But there is no logic in what the movie is saying about the relationship between humans and machines, or about anything in general.
You can’t blame some of the actors for appearing confused or bored. Brown, in particular, looks like a stunned deer in headlights. What she should look like is angry for having Michelle’s story line sacrificed to give more oxygen to Pratt’s Dollar Store Han Solo and, even worse, to Herman’s wannabe Transformer and its tiresome jokes.
As for the ending, let’s just say that the scream you may hear still echoing around is the one I let out during the final scenes.
The Electric State
Rated PG-13 for cartoonish attacks on an audience’s intelligence. Running time: 2 hour 5 minutes. Watch on Netflix.
